SALT LAKE CITY — Police say a Salt Lake City attorney who defended polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs in a 2007 criminal trial has been arrested in southern Utah.
Purgatory Correctional Facility booking records show Walter “Wally” Bugden was arrested at 1:38 a.m. Saturday by police in Ivins on suspicion of public intoxication.
Bugden, 58, was released from the Washington County jail in Hurricane after posting a $182 bond.
Ivins police declined to release any details about Bugden’s arrest.
A telephone message left at Bugden’s office Sunday by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.
Jeffs is head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, based in Colorado City, Ariz. and Hildale, Utah. In 2007, a 5th District Court jury convicted the church leader on two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the marriage of an underage follower to her cousin. He was sentenced to two terms of five years to life in the Utah State Prison.
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Bugden and his legal partner, Tara Isaacson of Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas attorney Richard Wright are also representing Jeffs in his appeal.
Jeffs is currently in an Arizona jail awaiting trials on other charges related to the underage marriages of FLDS girls. In Texas, where the sect has outpost, Jeffs has also been charged with an alleged sexual assault involving a 12-year-old girl he reportedly took as a wife.
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